Activity 3. Lenni Lenape Discover Europeans
Source: Galloway, C. (2009) “Native Americans First View Whites from the Shore,”
American Heritage.com
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2009/1/2009_1_50_print.shtml
(Accessed February 22, 2010).
Instructions: In 1765, John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckwelder transcribed an oral account of
the 1609 meeting in Manhattan between the Lenni Lenape and Henry Hudson, an English
explorer who was sailing for the Dutch. As you read the passages, identify evidence of
“cultural confusion” that would place the Lenni Lenape at a disadvantage in future
dealings with the Europeans.
A. A long time ago, when there was no such thing known to the Indians as people with a
white skin, some Indians who had been out a-fishing, and where the sea widens, espied at
a great distance something remarkably large swimming, or floating on the water, and
such as they had never seen before . . . They concluded it to be a large canoe or house, in
which the great Mannitto [Supreme Being] himself was, and that he probably was coming
to visit them. By this time the chiefs of the different tribes were assembled on York
Island, and were deliberating on the manner they should receive their Mannitto on his
arrival. Every step had been taken to be well provided with a plenty of meat for a
sacrifice; the women were required to prepare the best of victuals; idols or images were
examined and put in order; and a grand dance was supposed not only to be an agreeable
entertainment for the Mannitto, but might, with the addition of a sacrifice, contribute
towards appeasing him, in case he was angry with them.
B. Runners soon after arriving, declare it a large house of various colors, full of people,
yet of quite a different color than they are of; that they were also dressed in a different
manner from them, and that one in particular appeared altogether red, which must be the
Mannitto himself. They are soon hailed from the vessel, though in a language they do not
understand; yet they shout in their way. Many are for running off to the woods, but are
pressed by others to stay, in order not to give offence to their visitors, who could find
them out, and might destroy them . . . The man with the red clothes . . . distributed
presents among them, to wit, beads, axes, hoes, and stockings. They . . . were made to
understand by signs; that they now would return home, but would visit them next year
again, when they would bring them more presents, and stay with them awhile; but that, as
they could not live without eating, they should then want a little land of them to sow
some seeds in order to raise herbs to put in their broth.